The 1965 Voting Rights Act may be most commonly associated with the Civil Rights Movement and African Americans’ struggle against Jim Crow laws, but the law also played a significant role in the growth of Latinos’ political influence in Southern California.

In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court Wednesday overturned the section of the act that required state and county governments with a history of racially discriminatory voting practices to get approval from federal authorities before changing their voting laws. Writing for a 5-4 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the requirements, known as “preclearance,” violated states’ sovereignty and failed to address improvements in race relations since the Civil Rights era.

Although no jurisdictions in Southern California were subject to preclearance, the Voting Rights Act was at the center of Garza v. Los Angeles County, which was itself a major case that led to federal judges’ 1990 ruling that the boundary lines of Los Angeles County’s supervisorial seats discriminated against the county’s millions of Latino voters. Prior to the ruling, no Latino had served on the county board in the 115 years of its history, despite the fact that some three million Latinos live within the jurisdiction.

Garza’s outcome required county officials to redraw district lines to ensure that Latinos held a majority in at least one district. Supervisor Gloria Molina, who still holds office, became the first Latina elected to Board in 1991.

Tuesday, Molina signaled her disappointment in the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“Voting rights took a major step backward,” Molina said in a statement. “The preclearance provisions of (Section 4) of the Voting Rights Act were intended to prevent the types of voter suppression efforts that have been an unfortunate hallmark of our electoral process “” including the most recent 2012 Presidential election.”

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s elimination of preclearance requirements, anyone alleging racial discrimination in state or local voting practices would have to follow the example of the Garza case and file a lawsuit, said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel of the ACLU of Southern California and litigator in the Garza case.

Rosenbaum said the case had an immediate effect on Los Angeles County politics, with “the most powerful local government in the U.S. paying attention to Latinos.”

“For the first time, you had Latino faces and cultural experiences that were part of the political process,” he said.

Although the era of Jim Crow is over, Rosenbaum disagrees with the notion that improved race relations make preclearance unnecessary. In his view, preclearance had a “prophylactic” effect against officials who may have attempted to enact discriminatory practices.

As a result of the ruling, anyone harmed by future discrimination at the polling place faces the prospect of lengthy and expensive litigation to reverse illegal voting laws, he said.

Christian Grose, a professor of political science at USC, agreed.

“In practice it’s hard to show current discrimination because, unlike in the 1960s, even when people intend to discriminate they don’t say it out loud,” Grose said. “A lot of voting rights advocates feel this has gutted the act, because the section that was struck down, that was the one that didn’t require discriminatory intent.”

In addition to the Garza case and its effect on Los Angeles County, the Voting Rights Act was also central to the increase of Latinos’ political power in the city of Pomona, said Fernando Guerra, director of the Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

A 1988 legal challenge led to Pomona switching from a system in which city council members were elected at large to a district-based system. The switch greatly enhanced the prospects of candidates like the late Nell Soto and Norma Torres, who won seats on Pomona’s council before moving to the Legislature. Torres currently serves in the state Senate.

“You see that the 1990s was a tremendous decade for Latino political incorporation,” Guerra said.

Tomas Ursua, a former Pomona councilman who was elected after the 1988 cases, said he had hoped the change in Pomona’s system would have resulted in a more progressive approach to politics taking root in the city.

“That never happened. What happened was a farm team for the Democratic Party,” he said.

But Ursua also said the switch to districts made it possible for some candidates to overcome what he called a sense of “class warfare.”

“Perhaps the more affluent don’t want to give any representation to the less fortunate,” Ursua said.

Tuesday’s ruling is disappointing, but not devastating, said Asian-American civil rights activist Eugene Lee.Lee, of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, said that though important “protections” have been lost with the decision , there are still many portions of the law that will remain intact, such as the portions that require multilingual voting information and poll workers, as well as the section that allows citizens to challenge voting processes and procedures in court.

“One thing that I would think is important to keep in mind is that the Voting Rights Act is still there,” Lee said. “It’s a huge setback, but we don’t want to send a message that all is lost.”

But Ramon Miramontes, former Pasadena Unified School District board member and member of LULAC — League of United Latin American Citizens — said he supports the Supreme Court ruling because it will force elected officials to re-examine the issues of voter discrimination in the current political climate. He said district voting doesn’t always work, especially if it is not carefully calculated as evidenced by the recent Pasadena school board election in which redistricting failed to land a Latino in a board seat.

“I think today’s ruling forces today’s leaders to re-examine it and approach it in a very common-sense perspective,” Miramontes said. “What was clear is that neither side ignored or diluted the need for more Americans to be incorporated in the system. I think the responsibility is on the shoulders of today’s generation and that’s a good thing to have this conversation.”

Andrew Edwards is part of the Southern California News Group's business team and focuses on housing stories for the Inland Empire. He's based at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and has also worked for publications including the Long Beach Press-Telegram and The San Bernardino Sun. He graduated from UCLA in 2003 after studying political science and history.